Audi Alteram Partem
by norfintroll
Summary: A kinder, gentler side of Clay Morrow as seen by his daughter. One-shot. Clay, Tig, OC. Thanks in advance for reviews! Rated M for some language and adult situations (and because I'm paranoid). Sons of Anarchy is owned by Kurt Sutter.


_A/N: I had a dream the other night which involved the basic outlines of this story, so if you don't like it please place the blame on my subconscious. Thank you. Sons of Anarchy and its characters are the creation and property of Kurt Sutter._

"Audi Alteram Partem"

Clay Morrow was my father. Not the Clay Morrow that, apparently, everyone knew but me—the biker, the gang president, the killer. That was not the man who showed up at my mother's house in Reno every six months throughout my childhood.

No, it was a man who wore flannel shirts and jeans and rode a black Dyna without a single indication on it of any gang affiliation. He would take me for rides on it around the block in my mother's suburban neighborhood, me clinging to his belt, feeling the purr of the engine beneath my legs, waving to my mother who leaned against the fence with a half-worried, half-amused look on her face. "Be careful, Clay, for God's sake!" she would call as we went by, and I could feel my father chuckle deep in his chest.

He'd eat dinner with us, each visit, but he never stayed the night. There were things I grew more aware of as I grew older: there was always an exchange of money, a stack of cash slipped into my mother's hand at the door. She was a nurse at the hospital in Reno, and she made enough to get by, but I knew the birthday presents and the Christmas presents and the trips to the amusement park all came out of that extra. Looking back, I suppose it was tainted money, born of guns and blood, but my mother never said a word as she took it. I don't blame her; after all, it was for me that she had even kept in touch with Clay.

Or was it only for me? He never stayed the night, but neither did any other man. And every once in a while, when he came up the sidewalk and she opened the door for him, smiling a little, he would brush his hand against her cheek.

There were a few gaps that I remember in his visits, a few stretches (once for two years) where he did not come to see me. His dark hair turned grayish-white, and the arthritis that had always nagged at him grew worse. I saw the trouble he had with his hands when he gripped his bike, but he tried to hide his pain from me.

On my eighteenth birthday he took me out to dinner. "Have you decided where you're going to college?" he asked as we sat down facing each other across a white tablecloth.

"I'm not sure if I want to go to college," I said, fiddling with the rolled silverware. "I want to get out, see the world a little bit, you know?"

Clay frowned. "I want you to get an education," he said. "You're smart. I don't want you to waste those brains."

I stuck out my lower lip a bit and said nothing. His eyes noted my expression.

"I'm serious," he said. "Your mother told me you've been hanging out with some street thugs, and she's worried about you. I don't want you to go down a wrong path, Rosalee."

He had never called me by my full first name before. I was always "Lee" to him, always had been. He really meant what he was saying, and he was telling me what to do.

My adolescent rage flared up, although I kept my voice fairly calm. "I'm old enough to make decisions for myself," I said.

He shot me a dirty look, one that made me fidget a little in my seat. "You're a kid," he said. "You're not old enough to know what you're getting into. Your mom knows you've been sneaking out at night, and she asked me to talk to you."

Shit. So I was busted. I thought I'd been sneaky enough with the pillows in the bed and slipping out the window at midnight, but apparently my mother was smarter than I'd given her credit for.

"You don't have any right to talk to me about that," I flared up at him. "It's not like you've been around for me anyway."

I had hurt him; he flinched, and his jaw set hard. His voice when it came out next was rougher than I'd ever heard it before. "I've done the best I could," he said.

"This is the best you can do?" Some deep resentments were beginning to bubble up from my soul, and I couldn't hold them back. I gestured around the room. "Take me out for my birthday? What about all the other days when you weren't here? Don't try to tell me how to run my own damn life."

He stood up, pushing back from the table in one quick movement, and as he towered above me I felt a flash of fear. I'd never, _ever_ feared this man, and in that moment I wondered why. This was a dangerous man, even though he was my father.

"You don't know jack shit about my life, Lee," he said. "There's a reason for that. I've always wanted you to have a normal life—a good life. Hell, I probably never should have come back after I knocked up your mother, because believe me, I'm fucked up."

I had risen from my seat too, and was staring at him. People were looking, and I was fully aware of that. "Clay," I said. I had always called him Clay, but for the first time the name caught in my throat—strange, foreign to me, an unknown quantity. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, because I saw the pain behind his anger, but instead I ran out of the restaurant.

I started walking home in the dim red evening, hunching my shoulders and kicking rocks, tears stinging my eyes. I wasn't, after all, exactly the most hardened teenage rebel, and deep down I knew Clay was right. I needed to get my shit together and go to college, stop wasting time and hanging out with hoodlums.

However, I didn't walk home. I didn't want to face my mother or Clay yet. I took the side streets, glancing over my shoulder once or twice, and ended up at a familiar apartment.

"Lee?" Trent Rogers answered the door, looking a bit surprised. "I thought you said you weren't coming over tonight." He let me in, propping the door open to dispel some of the smoky haze in his living room.

I shrugged, looking around. Most of the usual gang was there, and they were all already at least three beers in. Trent handed me one.

"Let's go back to the bedroom," he said, his hand already squeezing my rear.

Resignedly I followed him.

"What's the matter?" he asked after a few minutes, unsealing his lips from mine as we lay on the bed.

"Nothing."

"Trouble with your mom?"

"Not exactly. My dad." I stared at the ceiling, ignoring Trent's wandering hands.

"Oh." He wasn't really interested. He tugged at the buttons on my shirt.

I really wasn't feeling it, although I made a half-hearted effort. Trent grew more and more frustrated with my lack of response. "I've never seen you this way," he said, sliding off the bed in his boxers and going to his dresser.

"What's that?" I asked as he came back with something in his hand.

"Just a couple pills. They'll get you going in no time."

"You know I don't really like to do drugs," I protested as he lay down next to me again and held them out.

"You'll feel better if you do," he said.

Hesitating for a second, I reached out, took the pills (who knows what they were?) and popped them in my mouth.

I remember vomiting, but I don't know what time that was. I remember coming out into Trent's living room, shaking violently, and seeing puzzled and scared faces looking at me. I must have fallen on the floor, because I found myself there. My head hurt, and the smoky, thick air was almost unbearable.

"She needs a doctor, man," somebody said.

"Naw," Trent answered. "She'll be ok."

I vomited then, weakly, terrified that I wouldn't be able to breathe, but unable to lift my head off the floor.

"That's it, I'm going home," one of the girls screeched. Her voice hurt my ears. The door was opening and closing—people were going out.

"Shit, Lee," Trent said. He pulled me up, my head falling back. "Snap out of it, will you?" He slapped my face, then laid me back on the carpet when I failed to respond. "Dammit."

The door opened just then; I blinked as I heard a familiar voice. "What the hell are you doing?" A dark figure swooped over me and knocked Trent sprawling, and suddenly I was in Clay's arms.

Adrenaline shot through me, and I opened my eyes. "I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok. I'll take care of it." Clay picked me up: I'd never realized how strong he was. "We've got to get you home."

"What the hell, man?" Trent's voice fluttered on the edge of the room. "You can't come in here and— ."

Clay's voice was deadly cold. "If you ever come near her again, I'll put a bullet in your head." There was absolutely no doubt he meant it. He carried me out the door and downstairs to where my mom was waiting in the car. Of course. She knew where Trent lived, and together they must have come looking for me.

I woke up in the morning in my own bed, and stumbled out to the shower. When I was done, I came out to the kitchen in my robe, wrapping my hair in a towel.

Clay was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. My mom was nowhere to be seen. "Morning," he said, and got up, pouring me a cup of coffee as I found my way to a chair.

I wrapped my hands around the mug and looked him in the eye. "I'm sorry," I said.

He nodded. "Took a couple years off your mother's life, last night," he said.

"I know. I won't do it again," I said.

"You sure?" He wasn't angry.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

He glanced up at the clock. "I have to go," he said. "I'm due back—got some business to take care of."

I followed him to the door and he gave me a quick hug and kissed the top of my head. "Be good to your mother," he said, and rode off down the street on his bike, letting it purr gently so as not to wake the neighbors.

My mom and I made up, which was a good thing for both of us, because she died in a car accident a month later. A stupid, senseless thing that I didn't know how to cope with. We didn't have any other relatives except Clay. I found a number for him in her phone and called him, and he came immediately, paid for the funeral, took care of the house, and helped me with the college applications that I had already started. When I got into a program in San Francisco, he drove me there and dropped me off.

I didn't see Clay again for a year—the phone number stopped working, and I didn't know how else to reach him, or even where he lived—but I kept my promise not to do drugs, and I did pretty well in school. I made new friends, and one of them, Lacy Anderson, invited me to her parents' home in Stockton for a quick break from the grind of study.

It was summer, in a tiny gap of time where neither of us had a class to attend, and we relished driving the open roads in Lacy's convertible, hitting a hundred miles an hour on the winding highways, stopping for lunch at quaint roadside cafes, buying jewelry in tourist traps. I felt happy, relaxed, able to laugh.

One day Lacy had a bad headache, so I took her car out alone and drove through the afternoon, listening to music and letting the wind blow through my hair. I passed through a town called Charming (nice name, although I wasn't sure if it lived up to the hype) and pulled into a diner on the outskirts, feeling a craving for an ice cream sundae. Lacy was always watching calories, but I had a horrible sweet tooth.

I was sitting in a corner booth, enjoying a double-dip strawberry-whipped cream-hot fudge confection, secure in the knowledge that nobody would find out my secret indulgence, when the door opened and several men walked in.

They were bikers, part of a gang. They all wore black leather cuts, and as they stood at the counter and milled around the small shop I could see the backs clearly. "Sons of Anarchy" stood out clearly above a Reaper with a scythe. Peeking beneath the leather on every man was the butt end of a pistol.

I felt a cold chill down my back as I watched them talking to each other. This was not play-acting. They weren't wannabes. This was the real deal.

One of the men, a blond who moved as lightly on his feet as a cat, turned enough that I could see the patch on the right side of the front of his vest. "Vice President. Men of Mayhem." I wasn't sure what "Men of Mayhem" meant, exactly, but it couldn't be good.

I was nervous, but curious, and I ate my ice cream slowly, watching them. I noticed that a lot of people who came in saw the bikers and left rather quickly; some of them didn't even bother to open the door. Obviously these guys were well known and respected (or feared).

Suddenly, my eyes locked with one of the men. He was much older than me, with curly hair and a thin line of mustache on his upper lip. He was good-looking, and I couldn't help myself when I saw him smile at me. I smiled back and then wished I could hide behind my glass sundae cup.

He left the others and came over to me, sliding into the booth without invitation. I was suddenly conscious of what I was wearing: a red tank top and my shortest Daisy Dukes. I felt rather exposed, especially when he looked appreciatively at the tops of my boobs.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi." He might be a violent man—in fact, I was sure he was, and that this whole gang was trouble—but I had no fear of him. It was like I could see past the lust in his eyes and read a certain gentleness behind it. He was probably a good lover, good with his hands, soft with his touch…

"You new to town?" he asked, leaning back sideways and propping his back against the wall, ignoring his friends at a table near the back of the room. He didn't even glance at them.

"Just passing through."

"That's a shame." He smiled engagingly. I really liked his smile.

"Why's that?" I cocked my head on one side.

"Charming's a fun town," he said. "Lots of things to do here."

"Really? It seems kinda quiet to me."

"Oh, trust me. There's more to it than meets the eye."

He was flirting with me, and I couldn't stop myself from flirting back. "Really?" I put a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth and drew the long spoon slowly out, curving my lips around it, watching his eyes.

"Sure. But it takes someone who lives here to really show you a good time."

"Do you live here?"

"Yeah. I could show you around, take you to some bars tonight, do some dancing."

"You dance?"

"I'm a man of many talents. If you don't want to do that, I can take you to the carnival, buy you some cotton candy, take you on some rides." He winked.

I giggled. "Aren't you a little old for carnival rides?"

"Hey." He looked hurt. "What's that supposed to mean? Are you saying I'm old?"

I couldn't restrain my grin. "It's ok. You're pretty damn sexy…for an old guy." I couldn't seem too eager, but I was really feeling the heat from him.

He turned a puppy-dog look at me. "You don't have to be like that."

I was already scribbling my phone number on the corner of a napkin. His eyes lit up when I gave it to him. "Call me tonight," I said.

"I will." He reached a hand across the table, and my fingers slid into his palm. "I'm Tig."

"Lee," I said, and at that moment I looked up at the door, just as it opened and Clay Morrow walked in.

Naïve as I was, I knew this wasn't a moment to yell "Daddy!" and rush into his arms. My face froze as I watched him walking in. He had changed so much, gotten so much older—his hair was so white, his face lined, and his hands curled with arthritis. I had a feeling of dread as he came down the aisle.

He wore dark sunglasses, and below them, his face didn't change when he saw me. I took my cue from that and looked away. Clay jerked his head at Tig, silently ordering him back to the group. Play time was over. All the men had grown suddenly quiet and serious, and in the silence of the diner I slipped out to my car.

I sat there for a few minutes, fiddling with my purse, knowing I should drive away but not wanting to. The man inside the diner was my father, but at the same time he wasn't. This was a different man. I'd seen the patch on the front of his vest. President. No wonder my mother had never told me anything about him.

I was only out there a few minutes before Clay came outside. My heart came up into my throat as I sat still, waiting for him to make his move. His bike—not the bike I remembered—was parked next to my car, and he came up and fiddled with something on it. His back was to me.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I'm staying with a friend in Stockton." My voice caught. "I didn't know…"

"This isn't a good place for you," he said.

"I had no idea." I was still in shock.

"What did Tig want with you?"

"He asked me to go out with him tonight."

"Do it," Clay said. "I'll get in touch with you." He walked away; he hadn't looked at me once.

I drove back to Stockton to check in with Lacy before evening fell. We had our girls' code: if one of us was getting laid, there were no questions asked. She knew a guy would call me that night, and she waved me away when the phone rang.

It was Tig. He didn't sound nearly as flirtatious as when we'd sat across from each other in the diner. "What's your street address?" he asked, and I told him. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

So he'd come to Stockton to get me. I stood outside on the front porch, waiting nervously, feeling as if the whole world had become surreal.

Tig pulled up on his motorcycle and I went down to the sidewalk. He handed me a helmet, I put it on, and then I climbed up behind him.

"So you're Clay's daughter," he said.

"Yes. I am."

"Damn," he said, and started the engine.

He drove fast on the long road back to Charming, faster than anybody I'd ever ridden with before, but I wasn't afraid. I wrapped my arms around him and moved my body with his as we took the curves and rounded the corners.

He pulled off the road at a little rest stop outside town, coasting down to a gazebo tucked back into the trees. Clay's bike was there, and I could see him sitting in the gazebo, smoking a cigar.

"Go on," Tig said as I hesitated, and I took my helmet off and handed it to him before walking slowly across the grass.

Clay had sunglasses on, and he was wearing his leather cut. He smiled at me. "Hi, Lee."

"Hello." I sat down across from him.

"I didn't ever want you to see me like this," he said after a pause, and he stubbed out his cigarette and took off his sunglasses. He looked more like my father then.

"Clay?"

"Yeah, Lee? What is it?"

I stopped. There were so many questions I could have asked, but looking at the man in front of me, I decided I didn't want to know the answers.

"I don't belong here," I said softly.

"I know you don't," he said. "Lee, I want you to promise me that you won't come back."

"Why?" I asked, although I already knew.

"I'm on a long hard road, Lee, and it's not going to end well." He leaned forward, arthritic hands on his knees, and his eyes grew distant. "Sure, I can fool myself when I'm with Gemma, or when I'm riding with the boys, but this road only ends in blood."

He reached forward and took both my hands, and I felt the arthritic heat in his knotted joints. "Don't come back. Promise me."

"I promise," I said, and swallowed hard. Somehow I knew that this was the last time I would ever see this man.

We stood up. "Tig will take you back," Clay said. "I told him not to fool around. I know you like him, Lee, but that man will sleep with anything that moves—and some things that don't. Make him keep his hands to himself."

I grinned, and so did Clay. "Who am I kidding?" he said. "Kids these days, they do what they want. Do you need anything, Lee? Money? Are you doing good in college?"

"I'm doing great," I said. I turned towards him suddenly and hugged him hard. He kissed the top of my head in the way he always used to, and I felt how tired he was.

"I love you, Lee," he said.

"I love you, Dad." I left him there, standing in the gazebo, and hurried back to Tig, who was sitting on his bike with an unreadable expression in his deep eyes.

Tig and I made love in an open field on the way back to Stockton; the attraction between us defied Clay's orders, and we knew that it was our secret, one we would not share. He dropped me off in front of Lacy's house at two in the morning.

"I guess you won't be coming back, beautiful," he said gently.

"No, I won't be coming back." I turned away, then stopped. "Tig, promise me something, will you?"

"Anything," he said, and I knew he meant it.

"If something ever—happens to Clay, will you call me and tell me? Please?"

"Of course I will," he answered.

I never went back to Charming. I went back to college, and in the whirl of San Francisco I could sometimes almost forget about my father and the double life he had led all those years. But I never actually forgot, and when my phone rang at five a.m. on a clear, sunny morning, I knew who it was before I answered.

"Lee, it's Tig. You, uh, you remember me?"

God, he sounded so tired—and ages older than he had when I first met him.

"Of course." I sat up in bed, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders although the room was not cold.

"Clay's gone," he said.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, bowing my head. "I see." There was a long pause before I spoke again. "How—how did he…"

"Lee, don't ask that." Tig's voice was very gentle, but there was authority in it. "He was a good father to you, and that's all you ever need to remember, all right?"

He was right, of course; and when I'd thanked him for telling me and hung up the phone, I walked to the window and watched the sun rising pink and yellow over the bay.

So that's my side of the story, my witness statement, so to speak, to the life of Clay Morrow. I'm no idiot—I know Clay lived by violence and died by violence, and that he was a man to be feared rather than respected or loved. But he was my father, and he never showed anything but kindness to me. He would not let me go down the path that he was on.

Is it wrong, then, that I still think of him with both respect and love?


End file.
